Russian warning over arms in NATO states
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A plan by Washington to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia’s border would be the most aggressive United States act since the Cold War, and Moscow would retaliate by beefing up its own forces, a Russian defense official said yesterday.
The US is offering to store military equipment on allies’ territory in eastern Europe, a proposal aimed at reassuring governments worried that after the conflict in Ukraine, they could be Russia’s next target.
Poland and the Baltic states, where officials say privately they have been frustrated the NATO alliance has not taken more decisive steps to deter Russia, welcomed the decision by Washington to take the lead.
But others in the region were more cautious, fearing their countries could be caught in the middle of a new arms race between Russia and the US.
“If heavy US military equipment, including tanks, artillery batteries and other equipment really does turn up in countries in eastern Europe and the Baltics, that will be the most aggressive step by the Pentagon and NATO since the Cold War,” Russian defense ministry official Yuri Yakubov said.
“Russia will have no option but to build up its forces and resources on the Western strategic front,” Interfax news agency quoted the general as saying.
He said the Russian response was likely to include speeding up the deployment of Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave bordered by Poland and Lithuania, and beefing up its forces in ex-Soviet Belarus.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the Pentagon plan, citing the lack of any official announcements from the US government.
US officials said their proposal envisages storing a company’s worth of equipment, enough for 150 soldiers, in each of the three Baltic nations: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Enough equipment for a company or possibly a battalion, or about 750 troops, would also be stationed in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and, possibly, Hungary.
The idea was that, in the event of an attack on NATO’s eastern border, the US could quickly fly in troops who would use the equipment, cutting out the weeks or months it would take to transport convoys of gear overland across Europe.
But the US proposal could cause tensions within NATO, an alliance that often struggles to accommodate more hawkish members such as Poland or Lithuania alongside other states that want to avoid a military standoff with Russia.
Since Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula and a rebellion by separatists in eastern Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states have pushed NATO for a muscular response.
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